Randy Hare’s Opinion on ScentLogix Pseudo Products.

Randy Hare’s Opinion on ScentLogix Pseudo Products

I was sent an email from a gentleman that read:

This is good information, and I do appreciate the email. I also appreciate anyone who is trying to do honest work, test products, and help the dog training community find better answers. However, I have a responsibility to look at the testing process itself, the reliability of the product, and the dog’s ability to recognize and respond to real target odor.

The problem with synthetic aids is not whether a dog can be trained to respond to them. A dog can be trained to respond to many things. The real question is whether that same training produces reliable recognition of the real substance under practical working conditions.

In detection training, the dog must be trained and tested in a way that proves the dog understands the odor it is expected to locate. The trainer must know whether the dog is responding to the real odor, a training aid, contamination, packaging, residual odor, handler behavior, or some other association.

Why Confirmation Matters

Confirmation is important because it helps determine whether the dog is truly recognizing the odor or merely responding to something it has been conditioned to associate with reward. When trainers compare synthetic products to real target odor, the testing must be fair, clean, controlled, and repeatable.

If a dog alerts on a pseudo product after being trained on real odor, that may show that the product shares some odor characteristic or that the dog is responding to something associated with the presentation. It does not automatically prove that the synthetic product is a proper replacement for real target odor in training.

The dog’s work must be evaluated against the real substance. A product should not simply be accepted because a dog responds to it in one test. The dog must be challenged, proofed, and tested in a way that removes guessing, handler influence, contamination, and incomplete conclusions.

The Trainer’s Responsibility

Trainers and handlers have a responsibility to know what they are teaching. If a synthetic training aid is used, the trainer must understand its limitations and confirm that the dog can still locate and respond correctly to real target odor.

In my opinion, the professional standard should be practical reliability. The dog should not merely perform in a way that looks good in training. The dog should understand the job, commit to source, and perform reliably when it matters.

When the dog is deployed, the dog is not looking for the company that made the training aid. The dog is expected to locate the target odor. That is why the training process must be held to a serious standard.

The Importance of Testing

Testing should be conducted in a way that allows the trainer to know what the dog is responding to. The test should include controls, clean placement, blind or double-blind handling when possible, and comparison against real target odor.

If the trainer does not know whether the dog is responding to true target odor, residual odor, contamination, packaging, or handler influence, the trainer does not have enough information to make a strong conclusion.

This is where the Randy Hare Method places emphasis on understanding the dog and the training process. A handler should not simply accept a response. The handler and trainer should understand why the dog responded and whether the response reflects reliable odor recognition.

My Position

My position is not that every trainer who uses a synthetic aid is wrong. My position is that synthetic aids should not be treated as a complete replacement for real target odor unless they have been properly tested, confirmed, and proven reliable under serious training standards.

The dog must be trained and proofed in a way that gives the handler confidence in the dog’s ability to recognize the actual odor it is expected to locate. Anything less can create false confidence in the dog, the handler, the product, or the training program.

Detection work is too important for assumptions. Trainers should ask better questions, test carefully, compare fairly, and hold the training process to a standard that protects the reliability of the dog.